Vineland Man Pleads Guilty to Illegal Possession of a HandgunFaces prison for selling gun to cooperating witness in investigation by New Jersey State Police

TRENTON –Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced that a Vineland man faces a state prison sentence after pleading guilty to a gun charge filed by the Division of Criminal Justice. The charge stems from an undercover investigation by the New Jersey State Police.

Alessi Gonzalez, 26, of Vineland, pleaded guilty yesterday, Dec. 17, to a second-degree charge of unlawful possession of a handgun before Superior Court Judge Darrell M. Fineman in Cumberland County. Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that he be sentenced to five years in state prison, including three years of parole ineligibility.

Deputy Attorney General Andrew Johns took the guilty plea for the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau. Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Fineman on Feb. 1, 2013.

Gonzalez was charged as a result of an undercover investigation by the New Jersey State Police Weapons Trafficking South Unit. During that investigation, Gonzalez illegally sold a fully loaded .32-caliber revolver to a cooperating witness inside an apartment in Vineland on Dec. 2, 2011.

Gonzalez is one of 57 defendants indicted so far in 2012 on charges of trafficking and possessing illegal guns as a result of a new initiative launched by Attorney General Chiesa. The New Jersey State Police – including two new State Police Weapons Trafficking Units – and the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau are aggressively targeting gun violence in New Jersey through strategic investigations focused on seizing existing weapons in violent areas, disrupting the supply-chain of weapons trafficking into those areas, and aggressively prosecuting criminals involved in the illegal sale and possession of weapons.